We’d been thinking and planning for a long time to make the trek west in our van—all the way to California and then north to Canada. And before we knew it, the time for thinking was over. We left home on a Monday, which seems to be our favorite day to launch ourselves into new adventures.

It felt strange to leave home during gardening season. The decision to skip vegetable gardening this spring/summer was not made easily. But I’m only one person with one “wild and precious life.” So before we left, I walked around the yard to view all the perennials in their various stages of splendor. The strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries were flowering. The apple trees were producing tiny bumps of would-be apples. The salvia, peonies, roses, azalea, chives, and butterfly bushes were flowering. The hydrangea, hibiscus, irises, daisies, balloon flowers, thistle, and black-eyed Susans were in their early stages. They’ll all look much different by the time we get back.

That first night, we camped at Letchworth State Park, nicknamed ‘Grand Canyon of the East’, in western New York. We checked out the Mt. Morris Dam before settling in at our campsite. The water at the dam was low. But according to a very knowledgeable and excited park employee, that’s normal.

We spent the following morning chasing waterfalls, rainbows, and birds along the Genesee River.

On the recommendation of a friend (thanks, Becky!), we stopped in the Glen Iris Inn to peek at the uniquely handsome staircase inside, before leaving the park. The Inn was an old farmhouse that William P. Letchworth had renovated as a country retreat. The bells hanging from the staircase were apparently brought back from Switzerland where Letchworth found that each had a unique tone to identify the cow wearing it.

Also that day, as on our last long road trip (October 2023), we learned of the death of another friend who’d been ill for a while. We’re sad to have to miss her funeral, but grateful for the visits we had with her recently.

That night we parked at the Gsellman Family Farm, a Harvest Hosts site in Ohio. Several full-sized goats, along with young (goat) kids, shared the space with us. When it started raining, they decided our van made a great shelter and we could hear them knocking around under us. Before we left in the morning, to make sure no goats were harmed in the process of exiting, Mark had to shoo them out with a broom.

After a pit stop at the local Walmart, we set our sights on more waterfalls, heading toward nearby Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Mark went for a run and I took a more leisurely (birding) pace along the Brandywine Falls trail.

After lunch, set our GPS for Beverly Shores, Indiana. The drive was a rainy one as we gained an hour, passing from Eastern to Central time. We arrived at the Dunewood Campground in Indiana Dunes National Park in time for supper.

In the morning, we left the campground and drove north about a mile to the shore of Lake Michigan. The water was choppy and the view expansive. You could have convinced me I was standing on an east coast beach looking out at the Atlantic Ocean.

Just down the street we pulled into the Great Marsh Trail parking lot. Mark went for a run along the Calumet Trail while I wandered down the Great Marsh Trail. Despite some noisy restoration work being done, the birds were active. I even spotted a few migrating Sandhill Cranes. [Disclaimer: I exchanged lenses on my two camera bodies before this trip. I’m still learning how to adjust the settings and the focus area on my D7500, so the bird photos are less than sharp.]

After lunch we left the shores of Lake Michigan and headed northwest toward Galena, Illinois. We’d reserved another Harvest Hosts site at yet another goat farm. At Hoof It Goat Treks we had a grassy spread by a dirt road all to ourselves (no goats) and fell asleep listening to a Barred Owl hooting in the woods behind us. The earliest goat hike was scheduled for 10am the next morning, so we opted out and headed to the local Walmart before 6:30am to use their facilities and have breakfast in their parking lot.

We spent the morning in downtown Galena. What a charming place! We passed by the home that was gifted to Ulysses S. Grant upon his triumphant return to Galena after the Civil War. The wide open Depot Park and River Trail, along with old brick homes lining Main Street gave it it’s charm. The list of birds we saw along the trail made me happy: Cliff Swallow, Red-winged Blackbird, Yellow Warbler, American Redstart, Rough-winged Swallow, (Baltimore?) Oriole, Starling, Killdeer. After a run/walk along the trail, we stopped at Otto’s for lunch. It came highly recommended and did not disappoint. Mark even ordered a couple of their homemade blueberry pop-tarts togo.

From Galena, we headed for Decorah, Iowa, home to Toppling Goliath, one of Mark’s favorite breweries. On the way, we found the Basilica of St. Francis Xavier in Dyersville. The interior was beautiful! And, totally unrelated, we learned that Dyersville is where Field of Dreams, the movie starring Kevin Costner, was filmed. We declined the opportunity to actually see the baseball field from the film, though.

That evening, we had dinner at Toppling Goliath where Mark enjoyed a flight of some of his favorites. We stayed overnight at Pulpit Rock Campground, as we did three years ago when we first drove home from Boulder, Colorado, with our brand new van. The campground was way more crowded this time, with families and large groups and kids on bikes everywhere! I guess that’s what happens when you book a site at a family-friendly place on Memorial Day weekend.

We had an appointment at Titan Vans in Boulder, Colorado, the following week, so we booked a couple of campground stays in Nebraska. Along the way we found Ada Hayden Heritage Park in Ames, Iowa. It had hiking, biking, and running trails around a large central double-llake. Mark went for a run while I walked around half of the double-lake, over a bridge in the middle. My most exciting bird find was a crowded Purple Martin nesting box.

We spent that night at the first of two campgrounds in Nebraska. Between the rain, the failed attempts to find a place near the highway for running/walking, another time zone change, and a slight malfunction of our gray-water outlet, Nebraska didn’t hold much for us.

Colorado was a different story. But a story for another time.